As a long time Need For Speed fan, I had my concerns when I heard the newest iteration of Need For Speed was going sim, rather than sticking with the familiar arcade racing I had come to know and love from the series. To date my favorite NFS is Most Wanted; the thrill of the police chases and the memories I have of working my way through the Black List are still fond today. There are no police chases in SHIFT, but what you do get is a great racer in the vein of Forza and Gran Turismo. No, it doesn't have hundreds of licensed cars and it's not as hardcore of a sim as those, but can SHIFT, in its first year, compete with these two juggernauts? Well, I'm no expert on the other two nor in technical sim racing, but I can tell you that SHIFT is a hell of a lot of fun and very addictive.

Racing has never been this SIMulated

Magic Frog's gonna lay you out.

The game that made every kid nervous. 

One of the PS3's first titles was the off road racer entitled Motorstorm. It was well received for providing the first next gen off road racer that featured a variety of vehicles, great crashes, and intense yet very accessible game play. Well, now it's time for PS3 gamers to grab their helmets once again and prepare for Motorstorm Pacific Rift.

Wait, someone actually put some effort into a PSP port?

Submitted for the approval of the Midnight Society...

Rockstar Games has quite a portfolio of work but we haven't heard from one of their long time franchises in this gen until now. The Midnight Club series, known for it's free roaming, urban underground racing prowess, makes its first appearance on the Xbox 360 and PS3 in the form of Midnight Club LA. Overall, it's a very solid title, but some drawbacks keep it from being an absolute must-have.

Futuristic racing has seen many forms, but few as popular as the Wipeout series Sony first presented on the original Playstation in 1995. Since then, several sequels have been released, most recently on the PSP in the form of Wipeout Pure and Wipeout Pulse. Now, SCE Studios Liverpool combines the ships, tracks, and music of the two PSP hits with a little HD zazz to bring us WipeoutHD for the PS3 via the PSN.

Classic Hanna-Barbera in a regrettably not-so-classic videogame.

Tony Hawk’s Downhill Jam just recently came out to the PS2 after spending a few months now on the Nintendo DS and the Nintendo Wii. Downhill Jam takes away the freedom of exploration and sheer openness of previous Tony Hawk titles and instead puts the player in races against other skaters and the clock. What amounts is a Tony Hawk game that’s never been easier to get into, but at the same time is very easy, very straight-forward (literally) and boring fast.